Last January, Gadfly warned that New York City stood to lose millions in federal dollars if Mayor Bloomberg and schools chancellor Joel Klein insisted on mandating the unproven and academically dubious "Month by Month Phonics" as the citywide reading curriculum. (See http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=9#383and http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=8#368for more details.) They did it anyway. Now, a year later - and a week before the federal Reading First grant applications are due - Klein has finally announced that the city will scrap Month by Month Phonics in some of its worst-afflicted schools in order to avoid losing up to $34 million in Reading First grants. Keep in mind that, despite warnings from researchers and educators that his preferred reading program would not qualify, the city spent millions training teachers to use Month by Month Phonics and wasted half a year of their - and their students' - time. Rather than admitting error, however, the chancellor is still praising the "balanced literacy" approach and criticizing federal education officials for being dogmatic. "There ought to be some flexibility in deciding what the best way is to get the results," Klein pronounced. Of course, there was some flexibility, just not the flexibility to choose a reading program that has no record of teaching kids to read.
"For U.S. aid, city switches reading plan," by David M. Herszenhorn, New York Times, January 7, 2004 (subscription required)